I am going off on my own, a totally new approach

[UhhNegative]

Conrad is anything but effortless looking when he throws.

 

[Bradley Walker]

And yet he is too 10. Hmmm... Yah, I would not copy Conrad.

Kevin Jones is my model.

 

[keltik]

too 10? two tents? too tense?

long goofy run up and gangly follow through aside, Conrad is throwing off of core rotation as opposed to an arm pull. I would also say that McMahon is doing the same thing. I'm not arguing against your theory. I actually like it. I can see the difference watching different players throw. I intend to give it a try next time I'm on the course.

If you want to talk in terms of torque think T-handle wrench or keyed shaft. The arms then become an open ended three bar linkage with the shoulder girdle. Torque transmission must begin somewhere. I still posit that is at the feet. In the Jones case it appears the little kick is to signal a firing of the adductors to turn the hips toward the target/flight line; simultaneously locking the core with the left shoulder to stay in rotation with the hip. Just my conjecture.

 

[Bradley Walker]

Top 10.

 

[Bradley Walker]

In the Jones case it appears the little kick is to signal a firing of the adductors to turn the hips toward the target/flight line; simultaneously locking the core with the left shoulder to stay in rotation with the hip. Just my conjecture.

I can see you think it has some merit. Thanks!!

I think what you said there is spot on.

The spin kick turns the knee which spins the hip which is tied vertically to the core all the way up to the neck. It's that zippppp... The arm is simply an extension of the chest... Or the core whichever you want to call it.

Well played.

 

[Bradley Walker]

I was speaking to my friend who is a good athlete but he just started playing disc golf and he's very interested in everything I have to say obviously and he's a very good person to tell because he's like a sponge and I don't have to argue with him because he doesn't have any bad habits or poor teachings to unlearn.

I was talking about the need for me to develop my own vocabulary to describe what I need to describe. The first word I'm bringing to the conversation is the concept of the flap.

I am going to say that the biggest flaw in all of disc golf is what I'm going to call flapping from now on. The natural reaction to throwing backhand any object is to Flap your shoulder joint. Flapping would simply be like putting both hands together in front of you like your clapping and then going all the way out until you're in a Swan Dive and then go back to clapping. That is flapping. Most people if you hand them an object in ask them to throw it back hand they will simply flap their arm and not move their chest at all. All bad form is some sort of flapping and because of all of the misunderstood teachings basically people are trying to overcome flapping with more flapping. And the trailing arm often is flapping which causes the throwing arm to Flap in reaction. When the left shoulder joint opens the right shoulder joint will open I don't know why but that is the case.

Good players on the other hand have little to no flapping at all in their throw. The best players move their chests and their arm is extended straight out from their core for the entire throw with maybe a little bit of Separation after release. All breakdowns inform or improvements in form are related to flapping in one way or another.

This approach, first of all, is eliminating the possibility of the left arm from flapping and then concentrating on simply moving the chest with the arm being extended in a passive way. This is is exactly what the best players do when you really truly observe them. Watch Ricky wysocki that guy is doing exactly what I'm saying and that's how he throws back hand. He turns his left side in around behind his right side and then fires it around and keeps his arm out in front of his chest and that's his entire backhand throw... end of story.

Once you experience the completely flapless throw you will never want to go back to one with a flap.... that is my assertion.

 

[Discusted]

The rear foot has always been the biggest mystery to me. How do I get it to look like the pros. It seems that the rear legs turns inside and into the front hip. And the hips swivel so fast when the pros do this. Focusing on BW's instructions here I think I may have a breakthough incoming, but of course field practice will need to be done. I've felt plenty of living room breakthroughs that just didn't really translate to extra distance.

So what I'm doing is just starting in a staggered stand still stance. I rock back onto my rear foot, my rear knee is bent from the weight on my back foot. When my weight is on the back foot like this, my front heel comes off the ground and is swiveled inward a bit. Then I start the transfer to the front foot, crushing the can. As I do this, the rear foot heel comes off like it usually does (the SW swivel chair drill I think) and I elongate my plant leg moving me upwards and braced. Now as I crush the can and elongate the front leg I put WAY WAY WAY more emphasis on turning that rear knee inward. I find the quicker or stronger I can turn that knee inward the quicker my hips rotate and thus deliver more power to throwing arm.


Am I on the right track here?

 

[sidewinder22]

If you want to talk in terms of torque think T-handle wrench or keyed shaft. The arms then become an open ended three bar linkage with the shoulder girdle. Torque transmission must begin somewhere. I still posit that is at the feet. In the Jones case it appears the little kick is to signal a firing of the adductors to turn the hips toward the target/flight line; simultaneously locking the core with the left shoulder to stay in rotation with the hip. Just my conjecture.

Agree the force comes from the ground up. The torque is the byproduct of leverage/increasing the T-handle length increases leverage on it/or the disc, so when you swing on one-leg the increased torque is released into the ground and the disc, instead of the torque remaining in the body/levers when you swing on two-legs weighted to the ground. The body is more like a "X-handle" than "T-handle", but when the rear foot leaves the ground before the swing, it becomes the "T-handle"(One Leg/Feet Together Drill) with the rear leg and arm countering the release of the swing making the T-handle leverage longer, instead of torquing into the ground through the body in a wide "X-handle" of the feet/weight stuck back.

I don't try to spin the disc with the wrist or arm, wrist is almost locked so I just leverage the crap out of the disc through it targetward from the ground up and spin/torque on the disc is the byproduct released on it.

With the feet it's like throwing with on ice skates on ice, you have levers as skates/feet. If your skate spins out, you can't move forward. If your weight is behind your rear skate or gets to the outside edge of the skate you are going to have a hard time accelerating into the front leg/skate and maintaining dynamic balance to release the arm.

 

[Dan Ensor]

I've found that my non-dominant arm is stronger in a lot of situations. However, that does not translate into LH distance. My opinion is that anything other than your throwing arm is minimal loss, minimal gain. Lower body/core is 40% of distance, but 90% of body; lots of people throw accurately without it though.

A particular weakness in my left arm is my shoulder (determined by injury).

This is all true. So all you discerners need to step up on it .

My analysis is that my fine motor skills on my LH side are leaking (massive) power, and my massive motor skills are leaking (minor) power on my RHBH. Now if I can figure out what's leaking on my RHFH :S .

 

[Bradley Walker]

Let's return to the discussion of the new throwing method.

If You observe the Kevin Jones throw you can notice that his run-up serves to facilitate two main elements. The first thing is that he must create some forward momentum with the center of his Mass to facilitate a weight shift . His x step serves only to place his left side in behind his right side and he serves to crawl up sideways in his run-up with his eyes facing the target and his left side being pushed in behind is right. He is doing absolutely nothing with the disc and the throwing arm. He simply has his arm folded at the elbow and sitting in front of his chest.

Now to the critical part where he plants and prepares to launch his left side around his right. The first thing that happens is that the left foot plants at approximately 45 degrees open to his body. And with this plant he steps laterally with his right foot and plants is right foot approximately 45 Degrees open to his body. Then as the center of his Mass continues to move forward he spins his left foot from 45° open to 45 degrees closed and his foot leaves the ground.

I would submit that this particular part of the throw is the same type of horse stance you see in every athletic endeavor where the knees are bent and both feet are somewhat open an in athletic ready position. This facilitates the hip joints working. And the feet are working along the line of the shoulders Inward and outward. This takes the mystery out of the foot position for the plant of the left foot and the plant of the right foot. His feet are simply slightly open to his hips in both directions to facilitate hip rotation in both directions. To rotate on one hip or the other the center of gravity must shift to that side and the trailing foot lift

 

[broomerang]

I was talking about the need for me to develop my own vocabulary to describe what I need to describe. The first word I'm bringing to the conversation is the concept of the flap.

You had me interested until this. We have to stop inventing new terms.

I practiced this again yesterday and I also looked at and did some of the drills SW22 linked in this thread. This new drill you came up with did help me feel what SW22 was teaching. Great job.

But I can't learn more made up terms to describe the throwing motion.

It's also very important to understand that no one is going to be able to repeat something every time after feeling it a few times. Neither does wanting to do it differently have anything to do with being able to execute. Your posts often come across as telling people they are wrong because they think differently than you and that if we just think deferentially we will be throwing like Kevin Jones (or whoever we're talking about this week).

 

[Frisbee-Hanski]

Kevin Jones slo mo:
http://youtu.be/_XHy_8Z45q4

 

[Tepi]

I'm a crazy engineer. Everybody's brains work and think in different ways, everything is a perception of our own brains. IMO there is no one absolute way to teach or think about the throw. When you are focused on a target, things can become perceived as straight even though the arc is obvious - like hammering a nail or using a battering ram (or tossing the weight of an object/disc), you want to pound the nail straight into a target, but to use the weight of the hammer you have to lever it from your body which creates an arc.

Totally agree, that's why I love that people keep posting their opinions/feelings of the throw! Just played couple rounds of disc golf and kept focusing on what Bradley posted. Some of the drives felt absolutely amazing and more effortless than ever with same or greater distance.

Did this fix my form all at once? Hell no, but I feel it finally after 1 year of thinking made me figure what to do with off arm. I will put it in my left trouser "pocket" and it acts as a counter weight in tilted spiral that pulls me around my axis with greater speed/mass, or that's how it felt anyway. After filming myself I will probably cry myself to sleep again, but progress takes work. :wall:

 

[sidewinder22]

And yet he is too 10. Hmmm... Yah, I would not copy Conrad.

Kevin Jones is my model.

IMO Conrad actually has better footwork than Jones, but wouldn't recommend copying either as models. You can take parts of their form and make it into your own. Everybody has different body builds, and athletic ability and flexibility.

Let's return to the discussion of the new throwing method.

If You observe the Kevin Jones throw you can notice that his run-up serves to facilitate two main elements. The first thing is that he must create some forward momentum with the center of his Mass to facilitate a weight shift . His x step serves only to place his left side in behind his right side and he serves to crawl up sideways in his run-up with his eyes facing the target and his left side being pushed in behind is right. He is doing absolutely nothing with the disc and the throwing arm. He simply has his arm folded at the elbow and sitting in front of his chest.

Now to the critical part where he plants and prepares to launch his left side around his right. The first thing that happens is that the left foot plants at approximately 45 degrees open to his body. And with this plant he steps laterally with his right foot and plants is right foot approximately 45 Degrees open to his body. Then as the center of his Mass continues to move forward he spins his left foot from 45° open to 45 degrees closed and his foot leaves the ground.

I would submit that this particular part of the throw is the same type of horse stance you see in every athletic endeavor where the knees are bent and both feet are somewhat open an in athletic ready position. This facilitates the hip joints working. And the feet are working along the line of the shoulders Inward and outward. This takes the mystery out of the foot position for the plant of the left foot and the plant of the right foot. His feet are simply slightly open to his hips in both directions to facilitate hip rotation in both directions. To rotate on one hip or the other the center of gravity must shift to that side and the trailing foot lift

Guess I should do a thread on why I will never throw like Kevin Jones, he is crazy young and athletic and IMO is not ideal model of efficient footwork, he takes a really long and fast x-step and low angulated hip stride into the plant, so he almost does the splits. His front knee appears to be snapping into hyperextension, OUCH!

I recommend a slow x-step/hop vertically to minimize that horizontal torque on the front leg, so you land more naturally upright on the front leg, knee is designed for vertical up/down motion, not horizontal side to side motion. Vertical compression/leverage vs horizontal torque.

My knee hurts looking at this. Rear arm is hanging vertically straight down like trebuchet/weight and not spilling the beverage = counterweighting horizontal front arm release from shoulders:

Doing the splits into super wide width of stance, you have to super athletic and flexible in the hips to get into this position and maintain dynamic balance here. This is very different than Immoveable Horsestance - which is what happens when both feet/hips are turned out from neutral with both feet still weighted/stuck on the ground! Kevin's rear foot is already de-weighted from the ground here at the front leg plant, so it's not restricting mobility:

Immoveable Horsestance w/ both feet weighted down vs Athletic Neutral Stance swinging on front leg only. When I say closed stance vs open stance I'm referring the position of two feet to the target, not the angles of the feet, the player on the left has his feet in straight line to the target. KJ's rear foot is diagonally closed to the target behind the front foot.

IMO Avery Jenkins has some of the best footwork in the game that most mortals should be able to perform. Short vertical x-hop, landing in dynamic narrow upright athletic stance like getting ready to do a neutral squat:

My footwork is the same as Avery's, and my rear arm is the same as Kevin Jones/McBeth/Conrad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5IlLh_MwB8#t=2m20s




This below is why I talk about setting up in neutral alignment instead of very specific angles, and as you add forward speed you must remain dynamically neutral upright to that momentum.

 

[Bradley Walker]

Who is "we"?

I think this might just be a waste of time...

 

[sidewinder22]

 

[crd 81]

Brad, is the "generating power from the left side" similar to a hitter in baseball pivoting on his back leg?

 

[slowplastic]

Brad, is the "generating power from the left side" similar to a hitter in baseball pivoting on his back leg?

Baseball players don't pivot on their back leg?

He's saying to experiment with using your left side/shoulder to position yourself. For example, when in the backswing take a momentary note of where your right shoulder is and imagine replacing it with your left shoulder. Once your left shoulder is in that place you should probably be near the hit point, hopefully with an extended arm, and get ready to unload that disc.

 

[Grippenripp]

What I took away here was engagement of my trailing side vs. Trailing side staying neutral. It's a different set of words and it fits perfectly with what SW22 has been teaching, it's not some revolutionary thing but it is very helpful.

 

[crd 81]

Baseball players don't pivot on their back leg?

If baseball hitters don't pivot on/from their back leg/foot when they are hitting, then what would you call it?

He's saying to experiment with using your left side/shoulder to position yourself. For example, when in the backswing take a momentary note of where your right shoulder is and imagine replacing it with your left shoulder. Once your left shoulder is in that place you should probably be near the hit point, hopefully with an extended arm, and get ready to unload that disc.

I see. Thanks.